A data center may be defined as a location, for instance, a room that houses computer systems arranged in a number of racks. Increases in the sizes and the densities of data centers has resulted in drastic increases in the power consumed by the computer systems and the cooling systems to cool the computer systems. This increase in power consumption has also resulted in drastic increases in the costs associated with operating the data centers.
With the emergence of dynamic or time-based pricing offered by utility companies for electricity and other energy, energy demand management is being used to “re-shape” the energy demand profile of customers/clients of the utility companies in order to reduce or minimize energy costs. In other words, for instance, some data center operators temporally redistribute the energy demand of the data center, within some constraints, such that the greatest energy demand occurs when the cost for the energy is the cheapest. Although such techniques often result in cost savings, additional techniques for reducing the costs associated with operating the data center would be beneficial.